


Love as You Are

by thisgirlsays22



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blatant disregard for destiny, Blow Jobs, Coda, Desperate soulmate sex, M/M, Pining, Post s6 fix-it (eventual), References to canon Geralt/Yennefer, Romance, Slow Burn, Smut, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:40:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22082731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisgirlsays22/pseuds/thisgirlsays22
Summary: Jaskier didn’t want to marry just any noblewoman--no matter how comely she may be--he wanted adventure and many loves, but most importantly his biggest, greatest love of all.He is not expecting that love to be in the form of a brooding stranger sitting at the back of a tavern.In one instant his breath catches in his throat at the beauty of the man before him and in the next, there’s a burning sensation on the bottom of his heel as his mark makes itself known. It’s pain and pleasure knotted together, roses surrounded by thorns.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 979
Kudos: 9801
Collections: Best Geralt, Bruss, Geralt is Sorry, I'd cry over you, Just.... So cute..., TWT FIC REC CHAT, The Witcher Alternate Universes





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [love as you are](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22699441) by [placid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/placid/pseuds/placid)



> This is a retelling, in its way, of familiar scenes we saw in the show, but with my own creative license exercised in places. So you'll definitely be seeing dialogue/scenes from the show, but they might be tweaked in cases. Expected to be ~4-5 chapters.
> 
> There will be mentions of Geralt/Yennefer's canonical sex/romance scenes, and I intend to dive into what's been presented to us in canon even though in this story Jaskier and Geralt are soulmates and meant to be (OF COURSE). But, ya know, love and sex can be complicated. I had initially intended to write a simple soulmates fic, but here we are now. Maybe that simple one will spark in me next time.

“Love freely, Jaskier,” his mother had told him. “Your greatest gift is not your beautiful voice but your heart.” 

And love freely he did. He gave his heart away, full and fresh and beating only to have it handed it back tattered and beaten. His heart always recovered as fast as it had fallen and broken in the first place, the cycle repeating frequently though not unimportantly. His love was real and it was a gift he did not regret giving. 

His mother’s capacity for love had been her greatest gift, too. Though Jaskier had always known his parents did not bear one another’s mark, her love for Jaskier's father had been steadfast and true. They would stay at the dinner table, long after the servants had cleared the plates and the candles were burning low, his mother listening with rapt attention as his father gave her the details of his day, his business. If the day had been particularly difficult, she’d rest her hand atop his and nod sympathetically, soothingly. 

“A mark isn’t everything,” she’d told Jaskier. “Love is built from more than magic.” 

What his parents had was beautiful, but as always Jaskier wanted rebellious things. He didn’t want to walk his father’s path, he wanted adventure and music. He didn’t want to marry just any noblewoman--no matter how comely she may be--he wanted adventure and many loves, but most importantly his biggest, greatest love of all. 

He is not expecting that love to be in the form of a brooding stranger sitting at the back of a tavern. 

In one instant his breath catches in his throat at the beauty of the man before him and in the next, there’s a burning sensation on the bottom of his heel as his mark makes itself known. It’s pain and pleasure knotted together, roses surrounded by thorns. 

The tavern around him smells like piss and ale, he’s got rotting vegetables in his pockets, he can still hear the jeers of the crowd, and yet this is still the best moment of his life. The one he’s longed for since he was a child, the one he longs for every time a beautiful woman or man catches his eye and he thinks  _ this might be the one.  _

He’d always thought it would have taken a little longer for his mark to appear. His partner would praise his music or tell him how beautiful his eyes were and then it would happen, maybe even for both of them at the exact same moment. 

“It needs a trigger,” his mother had warned repeatedly. “You can’t expect to know straight away.” 

But apparently, she’d been utterly and completely wrong. He merely had to look across the room and his heart and body had known what destiny itself had planned all along. This was the sort of thing she would have been deeply amused by. And in his head, he hears her laugh, hears her say  _ go.  _

So he goes, making his way through the crowded tavern towards his destiny. 

“What did you think of my singing?” It’s hard to keep his whole face from splitting into one giant, ridiculous grin. Surely, his soulmate will have been enraptured by his voice. Perhaps his own mark had even appeared the moment Jaskier’s voice had reached his ears. “You’re the only one who hasn’t given me a review.” 

“I’m here to drink alone.” 

There’s no flash of recognition or excitement when the man’s eyes meet his. No matter. Plenty of soulmarks appear at different times. Jaskier has always been quicker to feel and fall than most, and he’s nothing if not persistent. It’s only a matter of time before the matching mark appears, before this man will look at him with awe. 

“I love the way you just sit in a corner and brood,” he says without thinking. It’s not a lie. It’s the first of undoubtedly many things he will love about his soulmate. The man does brood rather beautifully. Perfectly. Like he was born to sit here alone in this tavern, scowling down at his drink, just waiting for Jaskier to find him. 

The man glares at him then turns his attention back down at his drink, which he still has not touched since Jaskier spotted him from across the room. Though there’s a window to his right, light spilling onto the table before him, the man manages to make the corner seem so dark. 

Undeterred, Jaskier presses on. “You don’t want to keep a man with bread in his pants waiting. Three words or less, that’s all.” 

The man watches him for a beat before saying, “They don’t exist.” 

“What don’t exist?” 

“The creatures in your song,” he clarifies in that same flat tone. There’s something, though, about the timbre of his voice that draws Jaskier in. He wants to keep talking to him, wants to drag more words out of this man even if they’re kicking and screaming when they leave his lips. 

“And how would you know?” 

The man stares at him wordlessly, and then something clicks. Jaskier had been distracted by the dull ache on his heel, vision narrow as he zeroed in on the man’s face. Now he sees the wider picture--the white hair, the swords, those eerie, mesmerizing eyes. 

Oh gods. His soulmate is a witcher? Not only that but one he’s heard stories of. Geralt of fucking Rivia. He recovers quickly, hiding his surprise. “Oh, fun. White hair...big, old loner, two very...very scary-looking swords. I know who you are.”

Geralt stands and begins to gather his things, unimpressed by Jaskier’s recognition. 

“You’re the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia,” he calls after him, attracting the attention of another patron, who follows Geralt to the door. 

Jaskier catches the tail-end of the conversation, sees Geralt accepting a bag of coin. Requests like these must be common for Geralt looks more resigned than anything as he takes the money. 

This is the greatest gift Jaskier could have been given, and he almost can’t believe his luck.

A love story with a hero would make for incredible songs. He could make Geralt a legend, could make them both legends. This must be why destiny chose to intertwine their fates. 

When Geralt leaves, he follows. 

There are many times over the course of his first adventure with Geralt that Jaskier thinks surely  _ surely  _ this will be the moment his twin soulmark appears. Shocked by the sensation, Geralt will stop walking, or bring Roach to a halt, and turn to look at Jaskier with understanding and adoration. That rough exterior will melt away and he’ll be begging Jaskier to write ballads of their love. 

But it doesn’t happen. Not when he offers to be Geralt’s barker, not when he promises to sing his praises and better his reputation. Not when he and Geralt are tied up back to back, uncertain if they’ll live or die. Not when they make it out alive. 

Because if it  _ had _ happened, Geralt would have been visibly distracted, or he would have looked at Jaskier in a way that made it clear that he now knew _ ,  _ or he would have fucking mentioned it after they were safe and sound. 

The sun is beginning to set when he and Geralt make it back to town, the sky streaked with orange and pink. They’ll be parting ways soon, their time together quickly coming to an end. He doesn’t want it to. Jaskier will stand here for as long as Geralt will let him. 

Geralt hitches Roach to a post outside of the inn. Roach bends her long neck down to drink from the trough. A chill is beginning to fill the air as the sky blackens overhead, and Jaskier knows he should get inside the inn, but he can’t bring himself to leave yet. 

As he strokes Roach, Geralt murmurs something that Jaskier doesn’t catch, but he notices how tenderly Geralt treats his horse, how much he seems to care about her. Jaskier makes a careful mental note of this; it’s the kind of detail that adds a certain depth and beauty to not only a song but to a legend. People’s hearts will soften towards Geralt when they see his touches of humanity. 

Music, like love, comes to Jaskier so quickly. Unlike love, it stays with him always. 

“Are you staying here tonight?” Jaskier asks, trying and likely failing not to sound too keen. 

“In case you’d forgotten, I’ve given most of my coin away.” 

Jaskier snaps his fingers. “Right. I did forget that minor detail.” 

Any vague plans of seduction escape him now. Not that they would have turned out any good. The tactics he normally takes with women, or even other men, would likely not work on Geralt. Serenading, buying a bouquet of flowers, waxing poetic about Geralt’s beauty are all moves more likely to get him punched than laid. 

He can’t bring himself to simply ask Geralt if he wants to share a room. Jaskier doesn’t even know if he has enough coin--he might have to offer to work for a night in the kitchen or see if he can earn some extra coin from the new song that’s been running in his mind all day--let alone enough courage. If he somehow pushes Geralt away now, it might take even longer for that damn mark to appear.

To fill the silence and buy more time, Jaskier says, “You’ll be roughing it out in the wilderness, then? You know, there’s a certain rugged charm to your camping.” 

“It does have its charms,” Geralt says, voice wry, as he adds pointedly, “It’s quiet. Peaceful.” 

He can’t stretch this out any longer. His heart speeds up a bit, but he ignores it and smiles. 

“Until next time, Geralt of Rivia.” Because he can’t help but push and press his luck, he says, “I look forward to seeing what manner of scrape we find ourselves in next time. Perhaps I’ll be so lucky as to acquire an even better lute.” 

“Hm.” Geralt’s permanent scowl deepens. “Don’t get your hopes up, Bard.” 

But Jaskier’s hopes take no heed. 

It is not lost on Jaskier that Geralt could have ridden away from him long before they returned to town. Instead, Roach kept a slow pace as Jaskier walked alongside them. With a start, he realizes that the only reason Geralt had come back to town might have been to make sure Jaskier got back safely. 

He reminds himself of this as he watches Geralt ride away, a dull, disappointing ache in his chest. He reminds himself of this again as he tosses and turns that night. He reminds himself of this again in all the days between his first meeting with Geralt and the second that he will ensure comes about. 

Destiny, he repeats to himself over and over, must have some sort of inkling what it’s doing. 

Right? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Kudos and comments are always appreciated <3 
> 
> you can find me [on Twitter ](https://twitter.com/aerbear22)  
> and [ tumblr](https://geralt-jaskier.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Tumblr fic link, if you fancy sharing ](https://geralt-jaskier.tumblr.com/post/190016462901/love-as-you-are-chapter-1-thisgirlsays22)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so impressed with the quality of content/quality of readers/participants I've seen in this fandom. Y'all are so much fun thank you for existing?? 
> 
> Here, have some more pining Jaskier as my thanks.

The second time Jaskier finds Geralt, he thinks perhaps the irrefutable, tremendous joy of seeing Jaskier again will trigger the soulmark and a tight-lipped confession from Geralt. 

It doesn’t. 

Geralt doesn’t so much as smile at him. Though he does, after only a bit of cajoling, allow Jaskier to buy him dinner. As a thank you, of course, for how much success Jaskier has found with his first witcher-centric song. He loves performing it like nothing he’s loved performing before, though he does not tell Geralt this part. 

“I knew you’d be unable to resist the prospect of dining with me.” Jaskier grins.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Bard,” Geralt says. “I’m not stupid enough to turn down a free meal. Food is food no matter who’s paying for it.” 

Nonsense. Utter nonsense. There are plenty of people Geralt would not accept a free meal from, but Jaskier does not point this out. 

Over dinner, Geralt even asks, “How’s the new lute?” 

It’s hard to tell if it’s a genuine question born of true curiosity and care, but Jaskier answers as though he’s sure it’s in good faith. “Wonderful, thank you. Your reputation improves with every note I strum and every word I sing.” 

Geralt rolls his eyes as he tears off a piece of bread. 

“What brings you to Novigrad?” Jaskier asks. 

“Work. There’s not much to be found, these days.” 

“Have you found anything then?” 

Geralt devours nearly an entire loaf of bread and hunk of cheese. “I’ll check the notice board in the morning,” he says between mouthfuls. 

“How do you manage to eat all of that?” Jaskier asks, caught directly between impressed and horrified. 

“Witcher metabolism.” 

Jaskier pushes the rest of his plate of potatoes over, and Geralt shoots him a surprised, grateful look and devours that too. 

“Now that I’ve done you a favor…” 

“Shit. Should have given me the chance to decline if those potatoes came with strings attached.” 

“What’s done is done. All I ask in return is for a story. Any story you like.” 

“I could tell you one about a bard killed by a witcher.” 

“Any story but that one.” 

Geralt takes a sip of ale and leans back in his chair, eyes tilting upward in thought. Jaskier pulls parchment, ink and a quill from his satchel, and looks at Geralt expectantly with the pen poised. 

Still looking like a starving man, Geralt takes a giant bite out of an apple. He swallows and says, “A few months ago I was hired by a merchant to retrieve some cargo from his downed cart.” 

The parchment and quill may have been premature. “Please tell me there’s more to that story.” 

“Drowners. The merchant was attacked near a swamp full of them. One got its claw in me, but I cut off its arm and finished off the rest.”

Puzzled, Jaskier prompts, “...While the claw was still...in you?” 

“Yeah.” Geralt takes another sip of his ale. 

Jaskier jots this down, wondering fleetingly if that left a terrible scar or was but a mere flesh wound to a witcher of Geralt’s stature. 

There’s something in this story he can work with, but he’s going to need to find a way to get Geralt to give him more details. Realistically, though, Jaskier knows he’ll be the one inventing many of the details as long as he’s got the basics to work with. 

“Did you get the missing cargo?”

“Yeah.” 

“And what was it that was so important to the merchant? Expensive wares? Might be a nice touch in the song.”

“It was medicine.” Geralt hesitates, and Jaskier’s head snaps up. “And it wasn’t the merchant who hired me, after all.” 

“Do tell. Go on then, who was it?”

“The man who’d attacked the merchant. Said he hadn’t meant for the merchant to die; he only needed one of the potions, but the drowners got to them, and he fled. Merchant wasn’t so lucky.” 

“How did you know the man wasn’t who he said he was? What did he need the medicine for?” Jaskier is scribbling frantically now, jotting all this down. Drowners! A twist ending! He never should have doubted Geralt when he chose this story. “And what did you do with him once you got the truth out of him?” 

“There was an arrow in the horse’s leg. Never known drowners to use a bow and arrow. Man needed the medicine for his son.” 

Though the tavern is noisier than ever, everything seems to quiet around them for a moment. Jaskier feels he is nearing something important, that moment when you’re on the road and you can finally see a town over the horizon. 

“So what did you do?” Jaskier asks again. 

“I let him go.” 

Jaskier blinks at him. “You didn’t bring him to justice?” 

“I didn’t want to involve myself further.” 

Something about Geralt’s answer seems off. Though he wants to press, he sees the tightness of Geralt’s jaw and thinks better of it. 

“Now, can you describe a drowner for me? As much detail as you will.” 

It’s a brief, tiny motion, but Jaskier sees Geralt’s shoulders relax. “Ugly.” He has the audacity to look faintly smug. 

“That’s really unhelpful, Geralt, but I think you know that.”

Geralt’s lip twitches. He uncrosses his arms, resting them on the table as he leans forward. “Human-shaped. Blue, scaly skin. Fins on their backs. Four clawed fingers. White eyes, no pupils.” 

Adding more notes to his parchment, Jaskier hums. “I can work with that, bland as it is.” 

“Great,” Geralt replies. 

They stay at their table late into the night, the tavern around them growing more lively with every passing hour. The crowd is in good spirits--a birthday toast is made, games of dice poker are played, and one newly crowned father-to-be buys a round for all the other patrons. A cheery crowd such as this produces generous coin, and Jaskier takes advantage of this opportunity to perform a few songs. 

He glances over at Geralt a few times as he sings for the crowd to toss a coin to their witcher, and at the end reminds them that said witcher is available for hire. Geralt looks faintly amused and even spares a few claps--which may or may not be sarcastic--at the end of Jaskier’s song. 

“Another round on me,” Jaskier tells Geralt after he collects his crowns. “Don’t get too used to it, my spoiled witcher friend. Maybe my accolades will drum up some work for you so you can pay your own way.”

Geralt’s eyes are a little glassy and he seems less on edge than normal. He holds up his drink in salute, and Jaskier clinks his glass against his. At that moment, he thinks about telling Geralt then and there, _the first time I looked at you…_ but the words catch in his throat. He swallows them down, hard, with a sip of his ale. Geralt is only just starting to _tolerate_ him. Telling him, losing him so quickly, isn’t a risk Jaskier is willing to take. 

One of the dice poker players stands and gives a triumphant cheer, and Jaskier sets his mouth in a grim line. Luck and strategy, that’s what he needs too.

White-light bleeds through the window of Jaskier’s room. The full moon looks swollen and too large for the sky. Jaskier absently strums at his lute as he gazes up at it, uneasy. Strange, he thinks, that every time he tries to put words to what he is feeling for Geralt, none of them come out sounding right. 

What he’s feeling...it’s not real love, exactly. Not yet. He knows that. But he can feel that the seed of a great kind of love has been planted and already begun to grow roots. The epic kind of love all the best ballads are truly made of. Apparently, he just can’t write it when it comes to himself. 

He thinks of Geralt fighting drowners, of puzzling together the strange and terrible things men do, of letting a man go who might not have deserved it. 

Jaskier puts his lute down and lifts up his bare foot, angling it so he can see the mark on his heel. The raised, scar-like skin is shaped like a spiral, and he runs his finger from the outer edge to the inner again and again. 

Not for the first time, he feels foolish for how quickly his mark appeared. That capacity for love that was meant to be his greatest gift seems more like a curse handed to him directly from that nasty mistress Destiny. Why couldn’t Geralt’s mark have bloody appeared first? Why was this Jaskier’s burden to bear for the both of them? _Brilliant,_ he thinks with a touch of bitterness. _Just bloody brilliant._

The unfairness of it all keeps him awake for most of the night. 

The next morning, Jaskier waits for Geralt at the notice board. It had been chilly when Jaskier first arrived just before dawn, not wanting to risk missing Geralt’s arrival. Now, though, the sun is creeping its way up the sky and the air is starting to warm. Jaskier is tired and a little hungover, but he brightens when he spots Geralt approaching, the night’s frustrations melting away when they meet eyes. 

Geralt frowns at him. “Were you waiting here for me?” 

“Yes. Over there.” Jaskier points at a stone-ledge with a perfectly clear view of the board. 

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” 

“No.” Jaskier peers over his shoulder. “Find anything worthy of your attention?” He’d seen a few people tacking up their notices, but he hadn’t taken a look himself yet. 

Geralt scans the notes and plucks one of the most recent ones from the board. “Missing person. Contract was posted today, so the trail might still be fresh.” 

Jaskier points at Geralt. “Bet they heard my song last night and knew you were in town.” 

Geralt is already walking away, and Jaskier follows. The streets around them are growing busier--shop owners opening their doors for the day, vendors setting out their wares in the city square, and residents filtering out of their homes to begin their days. Geralt draws attention from them all. Glances range from curious to wary to downright hostile, and Jaskier studies Geralt’s face for any indication that he minds, but Geralt’s annoyance seems firmly directed at Jaskier. 

“Why are you following me?” 

“Because this is our second adventure, of course. I wouldn’t dream of passing up the chance to see you in action again.” 

Geralt gives a weary sigh. “I’m going to talk to the man who posted this and get some basic information about his brother’s last whereabouts. What kind of song are you planning to write about that?” 

“It’s a process, Geralt,” Jaskier says with a generous amount of patience. “You are my muse, and the more I can observe first-hand of you and the entire Witcher-ing process, the better.” 

“You’ll get in the way.” 

“I’m very good with people. I’d be an asset, and I won’t even charge you a single crown for my troubles.” 

“Fine.” Jaskier gives a satisfied smile and Geralt continues, “I’m only saying yes because if I don’t, you’ll be more trouble than you’re worth. Keep quiet and don’t say anything stupid.” 

“How can I say anything stupid if I’m keeping quiet?” 

Geralt gives him a pointed look, and Jaskier sighs. “Yes, yes. I’ll stay quiet and observe the master at work. No doubt your charm will put the customer at ease and get you all manner of valuable information.”

“It’s not about charm, it’s about asking the right questions.” Geralt follows a narrow, sloping path down towards the docks. “Keeping quiet starts now.” 

As they walk together, side by side, in a silence that is more comfortable than Jaskier would have expected, it occurs to him that he feels markedly different when Geralt is near. An unfamiliar calmness settles over him; he’d felt it last night too. 

For as long as Jaskier can remember, he has been restless. After his parents died, he had no reason to settle in one place or to live a certain kind of life, so he picked up his lute and went on the road. 

Emptiness and yearning have dogged him the whole time, no matter how he tries to plug the holes in his heart and life. Sex and ale and words and poetry and music are temporary potions whose effects wear off quickly. 

The restlessness cannot be kept at bay for long. It drives him to move from place to place. He couldn’t stay put at Oxenfurt for more than one year of teaching, and he couldn’t stay put anywhere else for even close to a year. It was like he’d always been searching for something. 

Being with Geralt is the first time he feels like he’s found that something. He thinks of all the years that Geralt has also been out on the road, so many more years than Jaskier can even fathom. He thinks that maybe all along, deep down, he could feel Geralt out there in the world, and now finally, finally he’s found him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you [ConstantCacoethes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstantCacoethes/works) for betaing this chapter! 
> 
> you can find me [on Twitter ](https://twitter.com/aerbear22)  
> and [ tumblr](https://geralt-jaskier.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Kudos and comments are so appreciated <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to comment! It's been a treat reading them <3 
> 
> Also, I don't know if y'all saw the Netflix timeline that came out, but I was a bit hmm over it. My story mostly follows it, but in my mind it's a bit more...compressed (less time between episodes 2 & 4 essentially.) Not that it matters a ton, but just throwing that out there.

The contractor’s house rests atop a small hill from which the pier and a strip of shore are visible. White sails of the docked wooden boats are pushed to and fro by the breeze. The peacefulness of the day makes it difficult to believe that an ill fate could have befallen this man’s brother. Surely, they’ll find him passed out in a back-alley. Easy coin for an easy ending. He could probably make a fun little song about that, something light-hearted in-between battles with kikimores and ghouls.

A small old woman answers the door and peers up at them apprehensively. 

“We’re here about the contract,” Geralt says politely. 

“Oh, yes. Thank you for coming so quickly.” She looks so relieved at Geralt’s presence it nearly breaks Jaskier’s heart. “My son Alan didn’t come home last night or this morning. We’re terribly worried something’s happened to him.” 

Jaskier feels confident in his initial assessment that the missing man has simply gone on a bender of sorts and is still probably stumbling around drunk. Having been there himself on numerous occasions, Jaskier certainly can't fault anyone else for doing so, but this does seem like a massive waste of a witcher’s time. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” the woman says, glancing at Jaskier as if she can read his thoughts. “But this isn’t something he does. Not much of a drinker, always comes home before morning. I just know something is wrong.” 

“Do you know where he was last seen?” Geralt asks. 

He can’t believe Geralt hasn’t already turned and walked away. 

She shakes her head and tells them they’ll find her other son, John, the one who posted the contract, at the docks. “He’s fair-haired, very tall,” she tells them. “Taller than you both. Won’t have a lick of trouble finding him. He’ll have more information for you.” 

At the docks, Jaskier spots a man that fits John’s description. He taps on Geralt’s arm and points him out. 

“See? I’m useful to you in more ways than one. Not only am I going to spread word of your great deeds, I’m making them happen.” 

“I would have found him myself.” 

“We’ll never know for certain.” 

Geralt punches his arm, but there is distinctly less force behind it this time than when he’d been punched in the gut by Geralt. If that wasn’t progress, what was? 

They make their way to where the man who might be John is loading crates onto a boat, and Jaskier notices again as the workers stop to gape at Geralt or turn to one another, whispering and shooting wary looks his way. Jaskier is amazed that it doesn't seem to drive Geralt mad, and it strengthens his resolve to improve Geralt's reputation. Soon those looks will simply be awe-filled and full of gratitude that a hero has strolled into town. 

“You John?” Geralt asks as they approach the man, who nods.

“Here about the contract, I hope?” 

“That’s right. Spoke to your mother. Said you’d be able to tell us more.” 

John sends them to one of the local brothels, Crippled Kate’s, where they speak to some of the regulars as well as a couple of the girls. A few of them report hearing strange sounds outside, but they’d thought it was just a stray dog. 

“This feels like a wild goose chase,” Jaskier says after they’ve been searching the area surrounding Crippled Kates for close to an hour. 

“You’re the one who wanted to come. Not gonna complain if you decide to go strum your lute instead.” 

Jaskier stops whining after that. Not long after, they come upon an alleyway, and Geralt’s stiffens. 

“What? Your witcher-y senses pick up on something?” 

Geralt makes his way to the center of the alley, and that’s when Jaskier can see small dark patches on the cobblestones. 

“There was a full moon last night,” Geralt says. Jaskier remembers. “Figured I should look into this if there was even a chance it was a werewolf.” 

“Have you dealt with werewolves before, then?” 

“Yeah.” Taking a step towards the blood then kneeling, Geralt says, “Someone else moved the body. Blood’s too fresh for the transformation to have worn off in time for them to come back and move it themselves. That is, if they were aware of what they'd done. Must have done it last night when no one was around."

Jaskier isn't sure if Geralt is saying all of this for his benefit--and if so, it's very much appreciated--or talking to himself. 

“Can’t tell if this was someone who was born with lycanthropy or cursed with it,” Geralt mutters. 

“Why does that matter?” 

Geralt glances over at him. “If you’re born with it, you stand a better chance of learning to control the transformation. I’m not sure which this was. An intentional kill or a loss of control.” 

Jaskier is still puzzling over why Geralt would need to make this distinction, but before he can ask, Geralt sniffs the air and walks purposefully from the alley. Jaskier has never seen a witcher’s infamous sense of smell in action before, and in the back of his mind he's already thinking up a list of words that rhyme with 'sniff'. 

“Wolf left some fur behind,” Geralt tosses the explanation over his shoulder, and Jaskier is surprised he even bothered. 

He feels a flicker of trepidation run through him, but he ignores it and continues on.

He wishes he hadn’t continued on. Geralt had tracked the scent to a house not so very far from the alley. The young woman who’d answered the door had been so frightened she was shaking. “My daughter,” she’d said when Geralt explained who he was and bluntly asked her what had happened. “It’s not her fault, she can’t control it.” 

Jaskier feels ill. He can’t stop seeing the woman’s eyes as she pleaded with Geralt not to kill her daughter. And of course, Geralt hadn’t. He’d told her he’d figure something out and return to talk to her tomorrow.

Jaskier’s grip around the mug of ale tightens. “Who would curse a _child_ , Geralt?” 

Geralt frowns at him from across the table. “We have a pretty good idea. Not that it’ll do anyone much good to confirm it.” 

The wife of the girl’s father had cast the curse, or so they suspected. Furious when she found out he’d been giving money to his daughter and the whore he’d fathered her with. 

“Yes, but it’s just…” Unfathomable. It’s unfathomable. He takes a long sip of his drink, wishing that he’d just gotten to watch Geralt slay a group of ghouls. 

Jaskier looks up sharply. “You can cure the ones who weren’t born with it, can’t you?” 

Geralt raises both brows in mild surprise and nods. 

“I studied a bit, at Oxenfurt. An elective.” 

“Right,” Geralt says, looking faintly surprised, maybe impressed. “Yes, you can cure the ones not born with it. Three things you can try. A shirt made from fool’s parsley, lycanthropy potion, or true love. Unless her soulmark is going to appear anytime soon, first two options are probably the best bet.” 

Hearing Geralt mention soulmarks makes Jaskier’s whole body tense up. “She could fall in love even without the mark,” he hears himself saying. 

“Yeah, but it’d be a fucking lot easier, wouldn’t it?” 

It’s nice that Geralt is trying to lighten the mood a little; Jaskier tries to smile but thinks his face is probably doing something strange, so he hides it with another sip of his drink. 

“What are you going to do?” Jaskier asks. 

“Talk to the family again tomorrow.”

“And what are you going to tell Alan’s family?” 

“That he was killed by a werewolf, and I dealt with it. I’ll try to track the body down for them. Could be on the riverbank downstream.” 

“That’s--” and Jaskier feels strange saying this. “Very kind of you.” 

Geralt grunts, but otherwise doesn’t reply. 

The next day, Geralt says to the girl’s mother, “I’ll look for fool’s parsley and bring it to you. In the meantime, you need to be careful. Build a fucking fortress if you need to, keep her safe when she transforms.” 

Jaskier truly sees Geralt then for the first time. Sees him with no accompanying fanciful thoughts, tainted by his craving for romance. He sees that Geralt is rough and good and there are things inside of him that he’d prefer others not to notice or, Gods forbid, draw attention to. 

It leaves him dazed. Words aren’t usually the thing he’s at a loss for, and he’s not particularly fond of the way it feels. But he can barely say goodbye to the girl’s mother as she thanks Geralt, handing him a small purse of coins. 

_Geralt of Rivia, my soulmate_ , Jaskier thinks to himself in that same daze as they make their way back to the heart of the city. 

Jaskier is surprised the next morning when Geralt finds him at the port, staring out at the flat, grey sea. 

He’s downright shocked when Geralt takes a seat beside him on the edge of the dock. 

“Why did you invent creatures in your songs?” Geralt asks abruptly. 

Jaskier squints at Geralt. “I’m sorry, what?” 

“You said you studied real ones, so why make them up?” 

He frowns down at his hands. “I thought it would be more exciting, capture the audience’s attention.” 

“The last thing the Continent needs is more misinformation.” 

Is that amusement he detects in Geralt's voice? 

“You see, that’s exactly why I intend to continue shadowing you, Geralt of Rivia. Really, everyone across the Continent benefits. Facts are spread, your fame and reputation exceed all expectations, and I--well, my fame and reputation will reach the grand heights that have been expected all along.” 

Geralt smirks. “They were throwing rotten vegetables at you, last I checked.” 

“A minor detour on the very-much planned for path of success I walk upon each day.” 

This earns a small laugh from Geralt. “Your parents must be so proud of you,” he says. 

Jaskier flinches. He doesn’t mean to create an awkward pause, that gap where understanding flickers across Geralt’s face. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

Jaskier waves a hand. “They died a long time ago.” He wonders, not for the first time, what they would have made of Geralt. If he would have been able to tell them his soulmate was a witcher. Not that it matters at this point given Geralt's lack of participation in the whole soulmate thing. 

He clears his throat. “Anyway, you’ll have to see me perform again--you’re a hit,” Jaskier says. “No vegetables have made their way to me again since.” He tries to keep his tone light, but it comes out dull, a blade that needs sharpening. 

“Hm.” The corners of Geralt’s lips lift in in a quick, barely-there smile. 

There’s something else on Jaskier’s mind he’s been wanting to say to Geralt, and if he doesn’t say it now he doubts he’ll get another chance. “What you did--what you’re going to do--for that family was a true kindness,” Jaskier says. “The sort one doesn’t often see.” 

He isn’t sure, but he thinks a flicker of surprise flashes across Geralt’s face and that maybe his expression softens ever so slightly. If it’s wishful thinking, he doesn’t mind. As quickly as it comes, though, Geralt is angling his face away towards the sea.

“The girl deserves a chance,” Geralt says with a shrug. Jaskier watches him staring out into the water and studies the strong lines of his face, wondering what he’s thinking. Hopes, distantly, that he’s about to say, “Jaskier, a mark appeared--” and he’ll point to the heel of his foot. 

Geralt reaches into his pocket and pulls out the coin purse the girl’s mother had given him earlier.

“What are you doing? What’s happening now?” Jaskier furrows his brow when Geralt pours a few coins into the palm of his hand and offers them out. 

When it becomes clear no explanation is forthcoming and Geralt stands, Jaskier says, “I’m starting to wonder how you ever manage to make much, if any, coin at all.” He drops his voice low, conspiratorial, “You seem to be in the habit of giving it away rather freely.” 

Geralt snorts. “Don’t expect it to happen next time.” 

“Next time?” 

When Geralt takes note of the hopeful expression on Jaskier’s face he sighs. “Fuck.” 

That same dull ache makes itself known later that day when he watches Geralt leave for the second time. This time, he makes the split decision to walk after Geralt. To call out, “You know, I’d be interested to see how a witcher goes about finding fool’s parsley and what you have to kill to get it. I’ll need these details, you know, for our adoring fans. Getting them straight from the witcher’s mouth is wonderful, but getting them firsthand would be divine.” 

Geralt says no three times and yet. 

And yet Jaskier goes anyway. 

Soulmarks do not always appear. 

He knows for certain that he was looking at Geralt when his own appeared, knows this is not some play-esque misunderstanding where it turns out it was the pretty woman just to the right of Geralt. But he does not know for certain if Geralt will ever have that moment, that spark that awakens that power inside of him. 

If there’s someone else that Jaskier needs to become to be deserving of Geralt, to unlock whatever piece of destiny is still out of his reach, Jaskier would very much like to become that person. If a girl could be cursed to transform into a beast, why couldn’t he be transformed into something, someone, better? 

Could witchers even _have_ soulmates? He ponders this for many nights, unable to sleep. Perhaps there’s some sort of magical loophole where only Jaskier’s soulmark can appear since Geralt is not fully human; perhaps he’s cursed to be the only one who feels this bond. 

Only time will tell. Jaskier already knows that for better or worse he will love Geralt of Rivia freely, even if it costs him greatly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you [ConstantCacoethes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstantCacoethes/works) for betaing this chapter! 
> 
> you can find me [on Twitter ](https://twitter.com/aerbear22)  
> and [ tumblr](https://geralt-jaskier.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Tumblr link [ here if you'd like to share ](https://geralt-jaskier.tumblr.com/post/190199613676/love-as-you-are-chapter-3-the-witcher)
> 
> Kudos and comments are so appreciated <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone who has been leaving kudos and comments. It is such a treat to get to read your reactions to the story and you're getting me more and more excited (BUT ALSO NERVOUS DAMN YOU) to share what I've got planned.

Jaskier has been half-hard all night and it’s doing a number on his head. It’s one thing to keep himself from seducing Geralt when he’s fully clothed and another thing to keep himself from seducing Geralt when he’s fully naked in a tub and has already let Jaskier put his hands all over him. 

He’s trying to focus on Geralt’s question about lords and how many want to kill Jaskier. He’s trying to remind himself that there are plenty more people out there to sleep with and get into trouble with besides Geralt. He’s trying to focus on Geralt’s declaration that he’s not going to kill anyone tonight--yes, fabulous, Geralt, no one has asked you to kill anyone, Gods!--but it’s bloody hard, and he already knows he’s not going to make it out of this without making a move. He’s waited long enough and he’s only a man. He’s not made of stone. He wants to fuck his fucking soulmate even if he’ll likely suffer for it later. 

He manages to say, “Yes yes yes. You never get involved. Except you actually do, all of the time.” 

Geralt turns to look at him and fixes him with a near-ferocious look, but doesn’t argue. Jaskier is starting to wonder if one day Geralt will just admit when Jaskier's right.

“Ugh. Is this what happens when you get old? You get unbearably crotchety and cantankerous?” It’s taking every ounce of restraint not to just strip down and climb into that tub and make it impossible to Geralt to remain in such ill-spirits.

Geralt’s expression doesn’t change. 

“Actually, I’ve always wanted to know: do witchers ever retire?” 

Now Geralt deigns to respond. “Yeah. When they slow and get killed.” 

The thought of this makes Jaskier’s stomach lurch. And he can’t help but draw closer to the thing that’s been on the tip of his tongue since the day he laid eyes on Geralt and that damned mark had appeared. 

“Come on,” Jaskier says, trying to keep his voice light. “You must want something for yourself once all this...monster hunting nonsense is over with.” He tries to keep moving around the room, to find things to fiddle with, to appear careless and carefree so that Geralt won’t know that he is hanging onto every word. 

Expression flat, Geralt says evenly, “I want nothing.” 

The words make his chest ache. Jaskier’s heart doesn’t break because Geralt doesn’t say _I want you, Jaskier_ , it breaks for Geralt. It breaks because Jaskier believes that Geralt wants nothing when he deserves everything. He should want more for himself. 

He inspects his fingernails, takes a breath, steadies himself. “Well, who knows? Maybe someone out there will want you.” He gets down on Geralt’s level, resting his arms against the tub. 

“I need no one. And the last thing I want is someone needing me.” He looks Jaskier in the eyes then, and panic flashes through him at the thought that Geralt already has his mark and is trying to make something painfully clear to Jaskier. 

“And yet here we are.” He waits to see if Geralt realizes what he’s saying back, what he means. He watches the candlelight flicker across Geralt’s face. 

“Hm.” Geralt’s face makes a move like he’s trying to smile but doesn’t quite know how to do so. 

Relief floods through Jaskier’s body. So Geralt wasn’t talking about the mark, then. Wasn’t sending some pointed, coded message to Jaskier. He was speaking generally, just musing about life, and he’s so full of shit about anything that might resemble a feeling anyway. 

There’s no way Geralt would be sitting here in this tub in front of Jaskier if he was trying to tell him _I have my soulmark and I don’t want you_. This would be a deeply weird and stupid way to convey that information. 

But before Jaskier can truly revel in that relief, before he can say anything else, Geralt begins looking around. “Where the fuck are my clothes, Jaskier?”

“Ah. Well, uh, they were sort of covered in selkiemore guts, so I sent them away to be washed. Anyway, you’re not going tonight as a witcher.” 

Geralt’s expression turns murderous again. Jaskier stands, albeit reluctantly, to go fetch Geralt’s evening attire, but then catches sight of Geralt’s head. 

“Gods. You’ve still got guts in your hair,” he says, wrinkling his nose. 

Geralt shoots Jaskier a flat look over his shoulder. “Won’t it help your cause? I thought I was meant to look frightening.” 

His relief is making him feel a little giddy and reckless. “Frightening. Not downright disgusting. Must I do everything?” 

He lifts the bottle of oil from the counter, kneels behind Geralt and begins to wash his hair. Despite Geralt’s protests of not needing or wanting anyone, he was awfully willing to let Jaskier take care of him tonight. Since he rubbed the chamomile onto Geralt’s lovely--very lovely--bottom, he’d understood that if he pushed, he could take tonight in the direction he’s wanted to for so very long. That was Geralt’s way of opening the door, and Jaskier just had to walk inside. Despite his reservations, Jaskier is ready to finally walk through that door. 

Geralt doesn’t protest, and Jaskier massages a lavender oil into his scalp. He used to do this for a lover back at Oxenfurt: Maria, who taught him how to apply the right pressure, told him where the best spots to massage were. He circles his thumbs just behind Geralt’s ear and elicits a soft grunt, so close to a moan that Jaskier’s cock perks up at the sound.

It’s so quiet, intimate, with the candles flicking around the room. Jaskier wishes it could always be this way, just the two of them here like this. Fleetingly, he can pretend this is just the way things are between them.

“Dunk your head in the water,” Jaskier says, voice raspy, and Geralt does. 

When Geralt sits back up again, Jaskier resumes his work. He rubs a little more oil into Geralt’s hair, the strands going silken under his fingers. Then he lets his hands run down Geralt’s back. He maps the raised terrain of scars, then focusses his attention on the bunched, tense muscles between Geralt’s shoulder blades, and Geralt’s head drops forward. Jaskier’s thumbs dig in deep until the knot gives way and there’s a soft, appreciative groan in reply. 

Maria used to like when Jaskier would let his hands slide down to knead her shoulders, and then they’d slide lower to where the mounds of her breasts were touching the top of the water and he’d knead those too. 

Jaskier’s hands slide further down to Geralt’s chest, and his lips are so close to Geralt’s neck. He breathes in the clean, lavender scent of the soap, the unmistakable, warm smell of Geralt’s skin underneath. Jaskier is impossibly hard, wants to tilt his head and bite at Geralt’s neck. 

“What are you doing?” 

Geralt doesn’t sound angry, and he doesn’t jerk away, but Jaskier pauses as if he had. “I don’t know, what am I doing?” 

“I can smell it on you.” 

Jaskier rears back, more than a little freaked out. “You can smell what exactly?” 

“Desire. Men, in particular, give off a certain...scent.” His voice is the low, unreadable rumble it often is. 

Hearing Geralt talk about desire and scent should be a potent aphrodisiac, but Jaskier sighs, shoulders slumping. Well, now that he’s been caught out, there’s no real use in playing coy. “How many times have you smelt it on me before?” he asks, not sure he really wants to hear the answer. 

Geralt turns and raises both eyebrows at him, the look both full of pity and amusement. 

“Well, I was going to offer to sweeten the deal for your service, but if you’re going to be a prick about it,” Jaskier huffs.

They stare at one another without saying a word, and when Geralt’s eyes flick to Jaskier’s lips, Jaskier feels a shiver run down his spine. 

Geralt stands and climbs out of the tub. Water glides down his bare skin, glossy and sleek, and Jaskier’s eyes drift downwards and any doubts he may have had about what Geralt was going to do next are dispelled. Geralt is hard, his large, heavy cock straining up towards the muscular planes of his stomach. 

Jaskier unconsciously licks his lips as they move towards each other. 

He’s got the same feeling he gets before he sleeps with a nobleman’s wife or concubine or mother. A little voice in the back of his head is warning him not to do it, but it’s Geralt. He was always going to do this one way or another. 

Jaskier’s tunic grows damp, clinging to his chest, as Geralt pulls him close and kisses him. He’s so hard he thinks he might die. His mind is having trouble processing what his prick has long since realized: Geralt is in his arms. Geralt is naked in his arms. Geralt is his soulmate and by the grace of the gods, he’s naked in Jaskier’s arms.

He’s been fondling Geralt’s cock with one hand since the instant he felt that hardness pressed up against him. 

“I don’t want to be needed,” Geralt warns against Jaskier’s lips, but Jaskier’s brain can’t decide if Geralt is truly concerned or is awful at flirting. 

“Never thought I’d be the one saying this, but shut up, Geralt,” he says before dropping to his knees. He strokes his hands up Geralt’s powerful legs, the white hair soft under his fingers as he nips and sucks light bruises into Geralt’s thighs. His skin is still wet under his touch and Jaskier chases stray droplets of water with his tongue. He doesn’t know if it’s more torture to Geralt or himself to ignore Geralt’s cock like this. Twisting his hands in Jaskier’s hair, Geralt lets out a low moan from the back of his throat, growl-like and hungry. Perhaps Geralt, then. 

When he finally gets his lips around Geralt’s cock he feels like he’s been drugged. His soulmark is hot on his foot, and this feels like nothing he’s ever experienced before. He can’t stop hungrily licking and sucking, like a starving man. Without being told, Geralt fucks into his mouth with shallow, loose thrusts, and when Jaskier whines at the back of his throat he grips the back of his head and picks up his pace. 

Geralt touches the back of his head, softly. “Jaskier, are you sure--” 

Jaskier pulls off with a wet pop. “Don’t stop, _please_.” He should be embarrassed by the need in his voice, but he’s too turned on to care. 

Tears prick his eyelids as he swallows more of Geralt down, his own cock throbbing and straining against his trousers. How has he waited so long for this? He wants to savor the taste of Geralt in his mouth, the weight of him on his tongue, for as long as he can. 

But Geralt gently pushes him away, makes him stand. “I want to see you too,” he murmurs. 

Jaskier strips off his clothes, keeping his eyes locked on Geralt’s as he does. He’s shocked by the desire he finds staring back at him. It almost matches his own. 

Geralt picks up the bottle of lavender oil and tugs Jaskier to the ground on top of him. They kiss and kiss and kiss, biting and sucking at one another’s lips and rocking against each other. 

When Jaskier can no longer bear not having Geralt inside of him, he reaches for the bottle of oil and presses it into Geralt’s hand. Geralt coats his fingers and says, “Sit up,” beckoning Jaskier to him. 

Jaskier kneels on top of Geralt, not quite sure what exactly he wants until Geralt pulls him forward and begins to suck his cock in earnest. 

“Oh gods, Geralt.” 

Geralt hums around him, the vibration sending shockwaves of pleasure through Jaskier. Oil-coated fingers press inside of him, teasing him open as Geralt runs his tongue on the underside of Jaskier’s cock. 

Jaskier is nearly sobbing by the time Geralt looks up at him, eyes dark and hungry and asks, “Are you ready?” 

All he can do is nod and shift backward. Geralt lines his cock up against Jaskier’s entrance, and when Jaskier sinks down onto him, he has to bite his lip to keep from crying out so loud that the entire inn hears. He’s so far gone for this man he doesn’t know how he’ll ever get back to safety. 

He rides Geralt with the same hungry, drugged-out fervor he’d felt when sucking him off, bouncing up and down on that thick, beautiful cock as if his life depends on it. The more Geralt moans, the more Jaskier bears down. A violent tingle of pleasure follows the soulmark from the outer edge to the center, over and over again as Jaskier moves. 

The weight and fullness of Geralt inside of him, filling him up, is so mind-bendingly good that he can’t stop a litany of curses mixed with Geralt’s name spilling from his lips. Is this what soulmate sex is always like? He wants to know if Geralt feels this dizzying, maddening pleasure too, if it’s taking them both to new heights. Jaskier doesn’t want to go to them alone. 

Underneath him, Geralt looks wrecked. He’s got both of his large hands on Jaskier’s ass cheeks, helping him keep his relentless pace. Jaskier never wants this to end, but he can feel his balls tightening, can feel his body tensing as he nears his release. He squeezes tight around his cock, not even stroking anymore, trying to hold on as long as he can. 

When he feels Geralt gasp and thrust up with a few final, merciless pumps, Jaskier comes so hard he spills into his hand, onto Geralt’s chest and chin and mouth. Geralt licks his lips, and Jaskier’s spent cock twitches at the sight.

Panting, he collapses on top of Geralt, their sweat-slick chests rising and falling together. 

His brain and body are so satiated and Geralt is so tender with him after--stroking Jaskier’s hair, rolling him over carefully before retrieving a damp cloth to clean them both up--that he almost doesn’t mind that Geralt says nothing to indicate if this has changed anything real between them. 

After they are cleaned up again and dressed, Jaskier says, “If you smelled it on me before, why didn’t you do anything about it?” 

Geralt is halfway out the door as he says, “Maybe I think it’s a bad idea to fuck my friends.” 

“I knew we were friends!” Jaskier calls after Geralt’s retreating form.

As big of a mistake as this will undoubtedly turn out to be, he lets himself bask in the small triumph for now as they head off to the banquet.

That temporary high wears off even more quickly than Jaskier would have guessed. Geralt treats him no differently that night, not really. He doesn’t want to sound ungrateful; it’s not as though Geralt’s friendship doesn’t mean so very very much to him. It’s just that...Maybe...Perhaps a bigger part of him than he’d allowed himself to acknowledge had hoped that their coupling would have changed things between them for the better. 

Even worse, for at least one-third of the night, Jaskier gets it into his head that he needs to come clean and tell Geralt that he bears his soulmark. Because maybe then he’ll reconsider his stance on needing people, on people needing him. Maybe he would make an allowance for someone to want him, to just desperately desperately want him and love him. 

He resolves that after the evening has concluded, he’s going to be honest. He’s going to apologize for not having come clean sooner. For having possibly misled Geralt by sleeping with him without revealing the truth.

And then Jaskier sees the way Geralt tells destiny to fuck off. Sees the way he can turn his back on his _Child Surprise_. Hears him say, “Destiny. Helps people believe there's an order to this horseshit...There isn't.” 

Geralt leaves that night without Jaskier. Jaskier leaves that night without telling Geralt the truth and with considerably less optimism than he’d started with that night. 

Now that Jaskier has had Geralt, all the longing he’s endured feels untenable. The threat of returning to that looms large above him, a black shadow cast from a great flying beast as it blocks out the sun. He knows he can’t do this to himself again, not like this. 

And for some time, perhaps months or years, he makes himself scarcer. Their adventures are still wonderful, Geralt’s friendship is still one of the greatest treasures of Jaskier’s life, but he tries to reel his heart in, slowly, carefully, as if he’s catching a wild, flailing fish. 

Jaskier has adventures of his own, too. Falls in love with a Countess. Gets dumped by said Countess. Returns to Oxenfurt as a guest lecturer. Composes and performs a rather successful, amusing song about Geralt and rotfiends and their dreadful exploding heads. Tries to ignore the mark on his heel all the while even when he wakes in the night and swears he could feel it burning. 

Eventually, blessedly, he thinks his heart has finally healed. Scarred but whole again, at least. 

Then he finds Geralt searching for a djinn in a lake, they meet Yennefer of Vengerberg, and it turns out his heart had never really healed at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you [ConstantCacoethes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstantCacoethes/works) for betaing this chapter! 
> 
> you can find me [on Twitter ](https://twitter.com/aerbear22)  
> and [ tumblr](https://geralt-jaskier.tumblr.com/)
> 
> I can't believe this is more than halfway over now! Next up? Some goddamn reactions to episodes 5/6. And then??? And then???????? We finally find out what the fuck is going on in that old noggin of Geralt's. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are so appreciated <3 Aaaand here's [the tumblr link if you wanna share.](https://geralt-jaskier.tumblr.com/post/190256440781/love-as-you-are-chapter-4-thisgirlsays22)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has been supporting this story. It's been an absolute delight reading your comments!

There are a lot of things in Jaskier’s life he’s been able to grin and bear: his parents dying. The Countess de Stael dumping him after he’d told her he loved her. Knowing that someone could have enough hate in their heart to curse a child with lycanthropy. Falling in love with his soulmate and best friend and still managing to be alone.

He can bear the times he sees Geralt and Yennefer together after Rinde and he can even bear the way Geralt broods more than ever for the few days following their tumultuous trysts. 

Geralt falling for Yennefer is...just barely bearable. After all, Jaskier has let himself fall for others over the years too. Since that night in Cintra, he’s done his best to tuck Geralt away into a separate pocket in his heart and leave him there, as difficult--or borderline impossible--as that task has been. 

Somehow he can bear the wish that intertwines Geralt’s fate with Yennefer’s. The way he can see Geralt’s heart break when he hears that he will lose her. The way Geralt turns on Jaskier in the face of all that pain. 

Jaskier tries to forget the way he’d asked Geralt to leave for the coast with him. Whenever the memory rises, wraithlike, it brings a fresh, violent wave of pain. But sure, go on then, he can bear the memories of that too. 

_You wanted to show me what I was missing? There she goes._

_What you’re missing is still out there. Your legacy. Your destiny. I know it. And you know it._

If Jaskier had been part of that destiny, if he was part of what Geralt supposedly knew, then it had only served to incite Geralt. To cause him to turn on Jaskier in anger when he’d been prepared to stay by Geralt’s side and weather the storm together as he’d always done. 

There’s a chance he could have gone on living with Geralt as his friend--his very best friend--and nothing more, but the idea of living without Geralt at all is the one thing he cannot bear. The idea that he had exposed a vulnerable place inside of himself that no one else ever saw and Geralt couldn’t have cared less, that Geralt preferred life without him, made Jaskier so very very angry. And he was rarely angry. 

He’s carried that anger with him from town to town, city to city, in the months since he made his way down that mountain alone. 

Jaskier indulges in vivid fantasies of burning off his mark. In a drunken haze one night he’d gone so far as to interrogate a local healer about ways he could rid himself of it. 

Though the healer had told him he was nothing but a drunken fool and promptly kicked him out on his arse, once the idea was lodged in his head, he couldn’t remove it, like a particularly catchy tune. 

When he comes face to face again with Yennefer of Vengerberg, it seems like fate’s intervention may have finally been favorable for Jaskier instead of the steaming pile of horeshit that he’d apparently been shoveling. 

Finally, a sorceress who might be powerful enough to find a way to remove the damned thing. 

He’s singing about a woman and her sweet kiss when he looks up and sees said woman in the audience watching him curiously as she sips a glass of wine in the back corner of the room. She tilts her head in acknowledgment when he spots her, so once he’s done strumming his final chord and collecting his coin, he feels less apprehension than he should at the prospect of approaching her. 

Yennefer looks as beautiful and downright frightening as always. She’s dressed in a black dress with white trimmings around the sleeves and neckline which plunges down low between her breasts. They’re in one of the nicer taverns than is Jaskier’s usual fare, catering mostly to nobles, but Yennefer still seems out of place--overdressed and yet, somehow, perfectly at ease. 

“Geralt isn’t here, I’m afraid,” he tells her, sliding into the seat opposite her. It’s getting late in the evening now, a silver sliver of moonlight cutting across the table between them. 

“Gods, you thought I was looking for him?” She shakes her head and gives a short, bitter laugh. “No, no. I have it on good authority he’s returned to Kaer Morhen for the winter.” 

“Oh, right. I wouldn’t know.” He tries to school his expression into something bland to conceal how his heart leaps at hearing Geralt’s whereabouts. “I haven’t exactly spoken to him since you dumped him and then he dumped me.” 

She looks amused, and Jaskier almost blushes at what he’d said. He hadn’t meant it in the romantic sense, not intentionally. 

“He dumped you?” she repeats. “Do tell, Bard. I regret leaving before the real fun apparently began.” She gestures for barmaid and orders a tankard of ale for Jaskier. 

“He blamed me for all of his troubles. You, the child surprise.” Jaskier looks down at the table. 

Yennefer scoffs. “Bullheaded prick.” 

The barmaid brings the ale, and Jaskier raises his tankard to Yennefer in a toast, which she returns with the clink of her glass against his. It would feel disloyal to agree with her aloud, to slander Geralt too much even if privately it feels like he’s eaten a bowl full of glass. 

“Was that song about me, then?” she asks, peering at him over the top of her drink. Her voice is disarmingly, dangerously sweet, 

He chokes on his ale. “My muse works in mysterious ways. Who’s to say if it’s about one specific person or simply speaks to the human condition.” He coughs, still recovering from swallowing his ale the wrong way. “That being said, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you’re aware of any way to go about removing a soulmark.” 

Yennefer leans back in her seat, a slow, smug smile spreading on her face. “And who might that soulmark belong to?” 

“Any number of fine creatures throughout the Continent. It appeared one splendid night that’s a bit of a blur of lovely faces and names. One can’t be tied down so readily, and I thought it might be a better fit for my nomadic lifestyle if I were to remove this one.” 

“I promise to look into it further for you, but I’m afraid so far no known...cure exists.” 

“Well, that’s a bit shit, isn’t it?” 

“Indeed.” She studies him and whatever she sees makes her expression shift, her eyes under their thick coats of charcoal and shadow soften. “He’s yours, you know. I’m through with whatever it was between us. It can’t be trusted.” 

“It can be trusted as much as a mark, hypothetically, if his did belong to me. At least he chose to make a wish about you.” He runs a hand through his hair. “As magnanimous as your offer is, kind, generous Yennefer of Vengerberg, I don’t need the charity. I wouldn’t want to be with Geralt because you’ve so graciously dumped him on my doorstep like a cat leaving a dead mouse as a gift for its ungrateful owner.” 

Yennefer fixes him with a look that rival’s Geralt’s most terrifying ones. “You bear his soulmark. No, don’t feed me more of your silly tales.” She holds up a hand before Jaskier can protest. “I wouldn’t say you’re exactly at a disadvantage.” 

“Geralt would not care about something as trivial as what destiny has decided for him. No. No. Not our fine Geralt of Rivia. You know that. You know of his Child Surprise and the way he shirked his responsibility. I was there that night, you know. Saw first hand how he turned and walked away from it.” 

A darkness falls over Yennefer’s face, her wound still fresh as well. 

“He would have walked away from me the minute I told him about my mark.” Jaskier speaks again, voice quieter this time, “And if it’s you he really wants to be with, I wouldn’t want him to choose me just because of the mark anyway, even if he didn’t think destiny was a load of horseshit.” 

Yennefer tilts her head to the side, weighing him up. “I sensed something between you two, from the first time we met. What I don’t understand is why he thinks that his mark could be for me if it’s really meant for you.” 

For a moment, Jaskier is so stuck on _I sensed something between you two_ that he nearly misses the second thing that Yennefer said. 

When it hits him, all the air goes out of his body and out of the room. He feels the way he did when the djinn was first attacking his throat, when it started to feel impossible to breathe. “His mark appeared?” 

“I felt an odd surge of magic coming from him after the djinn. The strangest thing is that it happened while we were...further engaged. I do not bear a matching mark. Of course, there’s always a chance it could appear later, but I think not. Though Geralt thought it might.” 

A cold rush of fear runs through Jaskier which the ale cannot warm. The sounds of the tavern around him go muffled. A dull roar rises in his mind as it scrambles backward to the moments after the mayor’s house had collapsed and he’d thought Geralt dead. Backward to the moment he stood and walked towards the house and--

Geralt had seen him. 

When Jaskier had peered through the window, Geralt had looked up and they’d briefly locked eyes. Does Geralt remember that? He feels ill. 

“Bard?” 

“I saw you through the window,” Jaskier says, head jerking up. He feels as though he’s suffered some manner of curse that has split his soul from his body, that he is floating above himself and Yennefer and the tavern. “Geralt saw me.”

To Jaskier’s surprise, she bursts out laughing. The sound of it is only a little mean. 

“He must care for you a great deal to be coupling with someone else only to have his mark appear for you, don’t you think?” 

His mind is still disconnected from his body. Neither feel like they particularly belong to him. 

“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this,” he finally manages to say. “Not that your council isn’t appreciated in these trying times, but you don’t strike me as a woman who is in the business of running around the world doing good deeds for the sad and lonely.” 

She rises, leaving her glass of wine unfinished. Geralt would have disapproved of that, Jaskier thinks absently. “Don’t presume anything of it, Bard. I would just prefer someone else’s fate be tied up in his bullshit.” 

“Whatever his wish was,” Jaskier says, “I’m not sure you have a better chance than me of outrunning it.” 

Yennefer lifts a shoulder. “We shall see about that.” She slips out of the tavern and into the night. Jaskier watches her go, finding himself a tiny, minuscule, bit less afraid of her. 

He stays in his seat at the tavern for a long while after that. Things that had happened between him and Geralt, seemingly little details at the time, now rear back on their hind legs, reaching and revealing their full height.

Geralt had left Rinde in such haste that Jaskier had asked if he’d already found a new contract and if he could come along for the hunt. 

“No,” Geralt had said tersely with one shake of his head. He was walking away, towards Roach, when he came to an abrupt halt, clenched and unclenched his fists, and turned back to Jaskier. 

His voice was a gravely rasp when he spoke, the one that never failed to make desire pool at the base of Jaskier’s spine. “Jaskier,” he’d said, and it was always the way Geralt said Jaskier’s name that did him in. He wanted to capture that magic in a song where just one simple word could make you feel a hundred things. “What happened to you was my fault. I wished for peace.”

Under other circumstances, he and Geralt would have both cracked jokes about this. Jaskier would feign outrage and rile Geralt up again, demand compliments about his voice and music, make Geralt take back that absurd comment about pie filling, ask if his fuck and his nap had set his head straight again. But it was like the Djinn still had a hold over his throat, the words caught thick and mucusy in his lungs. 

“I don’t bring you peace?” Jaskier tried to say in jest. The words fell flat on the ground between them. Jaskier could practically hear the thud of them landing in deafening silence. 

“No,” Geralt had said softly, and there had been almost a tenderness in his voice. “Nor I you.” 

It makes a sickening kind of sense now. Geralt had known then about the mark, known there was a chance it was Jaskier it belonged to, and he’d been apologizing for more than the djinn. 

Later, he had decided on that mountain top to go to Yennefer and not leave with Jaskier for the coast. Geralt had decided who he believed, maybe even _wanted_ , his soulmate to be, and it hadn’t been Jaskier. 

He expects to feel anger or sorrow or any manner of upsetting emotion to overcome him, but it’s mostly confusion. Something about it all seems off. Pieces of the puzzle forced together that don’t quite fit. Because if Geralt didn’t feel something tremendous for him, that mark never would have appeared at the strangest of moments after all the time they’d known one another. There was a reason and that unknowable, baffling reason filled him to the brim with hope. Dangerous hope. 

Though he counted himself as one of the very few who knew Geralt well, he felt entirely too biased to trust his more generous thoughts on the matter, and without Geralt in front of him, it was even harder to ascertain what might have been going on in his head. Jaskier thinks it’s possible that Yennefer is right, that Geralt does care for him deeply--for Gods’ sake he knows Geralt cares. But then why--

And on and on the thoughts go. 

He feels like a child plucking petals off a flower-- _he loves me, he loves me not._ His thoughts chase themselves in circles like a dog its tail. 

The Countess had told him--and he, in turn, had told Geralt--that destiny is just the embodiment of the soul’s desire to grow. She’d known about his mark, and while he’d tried to remind her on numerous occasions that there were plenty of people who did not choose to be with their mate, she’d dug her heels in on this point. “You talk of him all the time,” she’d said, though he’d never told her that Geralt was the one the mark belonged to. “I think your soul calls to his. I think your destiny lies with him and not I, my sweet Jaskier.” 

He longs to see Geralt but he knows this time he can’t be the one to chase him, no matter how much he misses him, how that longing is a searing pain inside of him. But if Geralt does somehow, impossibly, improbably, make his way to Jaskier, Jaskier won’t ever let him walk away again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you [ConstantCacoethes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstantCacoethes/works) for betaing this chapter! 
> 
> For all of you that have been sharing your guesses with me or promises to let me know what your guesses about Geralt's soulmark were, I am so curious to hear your thoughts! Though there were tons of options, this was the one that had made me go 'yeah, I'm gonna write this fic today', so here we are. TOUGH CALL THO!
> 
> Kudos and comments are so appreciated <3 and the [tumblr link is here if you want to share.](https://geralt-jaskier.tumblr.com/post/190340059196/love-as-you-are-chapter-5-thisgirlsays22)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't care if I'm a broken record, thank you to everyone who takes the time to support this story with comments/kudos/reblogs. Y'all are fucking delightful, and I hope you enjoy the end of this story!

Geralt has a lot of time to think as he passes the winter in Kaer Morhen. He finds himself alone there this year, which is probably what he deserves. 

What he’d said to Jaskier on that mountain hadn’t been fair, but it hadn’t been entirely inaccurate. 

It was Jaskier’s fault that Geralt had gone to the banquet. And it was Jaskier’s fault Geralt was even searching for that fucking djinn in the first place. 

Jaskier had not shown interest in repeating their tryst from the day of the banquet, which Geralt never begrudged him. Women are Jaskier’s preference, and as they’re usually Geralt’s as well, he couldn't fault him. It should have even been a relief, given Jaskier’s tendency to fall in love with anything that moves and resembles a human.

So it had come as an unbearable surprise when he found himself longing for the bard’s presence. When long stretches of time passed between their meetings, he found it hard to sleep. 

If it hadn’t been for Jaskier, he would have been able to sleep. If he’d been able to sleep he never would have gone looking for the djinn. If Jaskier hadn’t then decided to show up, Geralt’s wish wouldn’t have gone horribly awry, and Geralt never would have met Yennefer. 

His mark may never have appeared. 

Yennefer is the thunderstorm which breaks the oppressive summer heat, and Jaskier is the sun that breaks through the clouds, and neither should be cursed to suffer Geralt though he can’t seem to stay away from either of them. 

He dreams of one and then the other, but it’s Jaskier’s face that burns itself behind his eyelids, the one he wakes with each morning.

He hadn’t known for a long while if the mark had belonged to Yennefer or Jaskier, but he’d chosen to believe it was for Yen. Now, though, he can no longer hide from what he’s known to be true all along. 

Geralt had made his way down the mountain alone, wishing for Roach’s company. The heel of his foot throbbed with phantom pain. The healers in Novigrad had told him about this phenomenon once when he’d watched a man crying out in pain, pointing to the air where his missing arm should have been. 

Ahead of him, the sunset was a violent battle against the night, the sky aflame as though the sun was holding on for dear life. Geralt tried not to think of what Jaskier had asked of him, looking sharply down at the ground as though the sun could hurt his inhuman eyes. 

Losing Yennefer and Jaskier all at once was painful, but the outcome was better in the long run. Like setting a bone or amputating a poisoned limb before the toxin could spread. 

The truth struck him with such awful clarity then. He knew it in the same way he knew the sun would lose its battle tonight and rise again tomorrow, that Jaskier was the one the mark had appeared for. 

The realization has been slowly bubbling to the surface of his brain, a downer rising and rising to the top of a lake before it makes a fatal strike. He’d turned his head to the side while he was inside of Yennefer only to see Jaskier through the window-- _ alive _ ,  _ healed,  _ full of happy relief--and that awful, tender part of Geralt's heart, the one he keeps under lock and key, the one that belongs only to Jaskier, had leapt in surprised, unguarded joy. 

From the pain that had filled Jaskier’s eyes on the mountain, the way the mark on Geralt's foot had  _ screamed _ , Geralt suspects that Jaskier had already known the truth. Geralt had been foolish or willfully ignorant enough to convince himself that if Jaskier had the same mark, there was no chance he’d be able to keep that fact to himself. 

Hadn’t Jaskier once asked if witchers could have soulmarks? Geralt wasn't sure of the answer at the time and dismissed the question as just another in Jaskier’s never-ending stream of them. Now he saw it in a new light. 

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, twigs and the dry ground of the mountain crunching under his boots, and then louder he shouted, “Fuck!” 

Winter is giving way to spring, the white myrtle flowers budding along the pathways made visible once again as the snow begins to melt. He has to ride slowly in places or sometimes walk, careful that Roach doesn’t slip on the icy patches that form after particularly cold nights. 

Geralt rides for weeks after he leaves Kaer Morhen, making his way south in the direction of Novigrad, following the smooth curves of the Pontar. He cuts through towns and cities, gathering information about Jaskier’s whereabouts. 

He doesn’t know what of his heart is true or what is from wishes or marks, but he knows he must find Jaskier. If he sets things right between them, then at least maybe he'll find peace. He owes his friend that much, an amicable parting of ways. And more than that, an honest one. 

At night when the wind whistles around him and his eyes are closed, he’s dragged back to that mountaintop. 

_ Look, why don’t we leave tomorrow? _

_ We could head to the coast.  _

He hadn’t been able to look at Jaskier, like the sight of him might have turned him to stone. But in his memories, Geralt pictures Jaskier’s face as he spoke, face open and vulnerable, the terrifying blue of his eyes. So ridiculous and sincere in his red leather doublet that looked like dragon scales. 

_ He’s so fucking _ young, Geralt had thought, staring out across the horizon long after Jaskier had stood and left. Yennefer, he’d believed, could protect herself from him. Jaskier, he might destroy. Let it be Yen, he’d prayed, and spare Jaskier from a fate intertwined with his. 

Now he knows it’s better he spare them both. This life is not for Yen or Jaskier or his Child Surprise. 

He picks up a few contracts as he continues his route, and he catches a few rumors about Jaskier, namely that he’s been thrown in jail just east of Novigrad. 

Briefly, Geralt considers riding straight back to Kaer Morhen, but if this is to be his last gesture of goodwill, it may as well be a worthwhile one. 

_ You wanted to show me what I was missing? There she goes. _

He had wanted so badly for Yennefer to be the answer. For all the fire between them, there was a simplicity. A witcher and a sorceress. Her expectations of him would always be tempered. Their relationship, whatever its form, was already shrouded in a thick blanket of darkness that Geralt was comfortable navigating. With Jaskier, there would be nowhere to hide. 

_ What you’re missing is still out there. Your legacy. Your destiny. I know it. And you know it.  _

Jaskier. The Child Surprise. He knows it, though he doesn’t want to. Still doesn’t fully believe that this is true. It’s one thing for your head to know, and another for your heart. 

The last of his coin goes to paying off Jaskier’s accumulated gambling debts. Geralt pinches the bridge of his nose in familiar frustration but with a touch of new guilt. When Jaskier is hurting, his pockets tend to hurt the most. 

“You couldn’t keep yourself out of trouble for five fucking minutes,” Geralt says when he sees Jaskier slumped over in his cell. Dressed in his dirt-caked green doublet, he stands out among the rest of the small prison population. 

His eyes go wide when he sees Geralt, full of hope and anger. The sour twang of nervous sweat reaches Geralt's nose. Though emotions like fear are blunted for Geralt, or so he’s been led to believe, he feels a matching nervous twist in his own stomach when he and Jaskier lock eyes. But there’s some relief too, like the first sip from a waterskin after a long fight. 

Geralt hands over the stamped notice from the debtors and watches as Jaskier is let out of the dusty cell and given back his belongings. 

“Don’t have any money left for a room here,” Geralt says to him as they step outside into the late afternoon sun. “I’m going to set up camp along the river.” 

“Is that an invitation?” 

Geralt nods once, and Jaskier follows him with a sigh, that same apprehensive smell drifting off of him. 

They bathe in the river and set up camp almost entirely in silence. Geralt has no idea how to have the impending conversation even though he’d set out here to have it. He doesn’t know how to talk about anything else either, and it’s usually Jaskier who does that work. Jaskier had commented on the surprising warmth of the day and then clamped his mouth shut as if catching himself revealing something more precious than weather commentary. 

Geralt would jump on his sword before he admitted he missed Jaskier’s chatter, the way he’d try out new lyrics or absentmindedly recite poetry. 

After the fire’s been kindled, Jaskier stares at Geralt and Geralt stares back as they stand by the bright flames. There’s a grim set to his mouth as if he’s resigned himself to something. 

Dread fills Geralt. The same kind he feels when he’s underprepared for a fight. But he knows that no matter what, Jaskier has been a friend. He owes him more. Their goodbye should be better than the one Geralt had given. 

Geralt tries. He forces the words out. “Jaskier, I’m sorry.” 

It’s unclear if the words register. Jaskier’s expression doesn’t change; his mouth stays in that grim line for a few moments. “Why’d you come for me?” Jaskier asks finally. “You could have rode straight through town without paying off my debts.” 

“Would you have preferred I leave you there?” 

“Don’t be obtuse, you know very well that’s not what I’m saying.” Jaskier runs a hand through his hair, brushing it off of his forehead. “I’ve missed you.” He says it like it’s a confession, a secret Geralt hasn’t already guessed at. 

Tiny specks of ash float in the air around the fire, the light from the flames flickering across Jaskier’s weary face. Geralt hates that he’s made Jaskier look this way.

“It wasn’t you who I was angry with,” Geralt says before Jaskier can speak again. “I owe you an apology for what I said to you.”

For a long, unsettling time, Jaskier is silent. “Aren’t you as tired as me of all this faffing about? I know your mark appeared, Geralt,” he says finally. “Yennefer told me.” 

Geralt draws back. “When did you talk to Yennefer?”

“I ran into her about a month ago. But that’s not the point,” he says, exasperated. “I know your mark appeared and when it happened.” 

“Wasn't sure who it belonged to,” Geralt says. He isn’t quite sure why he’s saying it as if it matters. 

“Spiral on the heel of your left foot? Well, surprise. It’s me. I've got the matching one. I’m not really sure how one manages for his soulmark to appear when he’s fucking someone else--which I’ll admit I thoroughly enjoyed seeing at the time, but that’s not the point either. The  _ point _ is, you looked up, and you saw me in that window, and I still can’t get my head round why it appeared for you then or why you never asked me if I had one too.” 

“You never mentioned yours either,” Geralt says sharply. “I didn’t know you were capable of staying quiet about something.” 

“I didn’t think you’d exactly be welcoming of the information.” 

“Probably not,” Geralt concedes. 

“You would have turned and walked away from me if I’d told you. Same way you did with your Child Surprise. Same way you turned on me on the mountain. There’s a reason the things didn’t appear on our bloody faces.” 

“Jaskier--” 

“You didn’t want it to be me, did you?” 

“No.” 

Jaskier doesn’t seem at all surprised by his answer. “Why?” he ask immediately as if he’d been waiting to pounce. “This is the part I’ve been dying to understand.” 

“Because we shouldn’t be together,” Geralt says, Jaskier’s tone irritating him. 

“Do you really believe that?” 

“Yes.” 

Jaskier turns and walks a half-circle, stopping to face Geralt again. “You know what I think? I think you’re full of more shit than a chamber pot,” Jaskier half-shouts, half-laughs, then pauses. “Wait, was that clever? Should I write this down?” 

Geralt’s narrows his eyes.

“No. Doesn’t matter. The point is you’re full of shit. You never get involved, except you get involved every time. You don’t want anyone to need you and yet you want everybody to need you. You want to outrun your destiny and yet you claim the Law of Surprise knowing the risks, you make a wish to tie your fate to Yennefer’s, you let me--” he cuts himself off. 

“Let you what?” 

“Let me stay by your side over and over despite all of your protests.” The look Jaskier gives him is torturous like he can see straight through him down to sinew and bone and soul. “Yeah, you say you didn’t want it to be me, but it is and here you are standing before me today.” 

Jaskier is relentless, and Geralt is powerless to stop him. It’s like Geralt has grown roots into the ground. He can’t walk away, can’t speak. Just because you have a heart doesn’t mean you want to--or know _how_ to--talk about what lives inside of it.

He wishes it was true, that he was heartless, that his emotions were flattened, barren pieces of land. Fear and anger knotted with desire aren’t things he wants to feel, and he can feel and smell those emotions radiating off of Jaskier and seeping through Geralt’s skin. Whatever Jaskier is about to say next he can’t bear it and he can’t prevent it. 

“Geralt, you have to know how I feel about you. Even a head as thick as yours has to know that.” 

“Doesn’t  _ matter  _ how you feel about me, Jaskier. You would be better off forgetting about the damned mark.” Geralt hurls the words out, frustration dripping from every syllable. He never should have come after Jaskier and made things a hundred times worse. “After this, we go our separate ways again. I’m done with letting you stay by my side. I’m done with all of this. I want my life to go back to the way it was before you, before Yennefer, the Child Surprise, all of it.” 

“No.” Jaskier shakes his head and takes a step forward towards Geralt. “I don’t think that’s what you actually want at all.” 

“It  _ is _ .” 

“I think maybe you do want to be with me,” Jaskier says plainly, taking another bold step forward. “I kept telling myself that I was mad for even entertaining the possibility, but I’m not. You wouldn’t be so angry with me right now or on that mountain, if it didn’t infuriate you, bloody  _ terrify  _ you, that you might actually want this.” 

“I mean it, Jaskier.  _ Stop, _ ” he all but growls, taking his own step forward. 

They’re toe to toe now. There’s a challenge in Jaskier’s eyes that Geralt has never seen before. Usually, he’s gentler than this when he speaks the truths Geralt doesn’t want to hear. 

They started this conversation at the outer edge of the spiral, and now he can feel them closing in, trapped in the shape of it, as they move inevitably towards the center of it all. 

Geralt won’t be the one to look away first. Can’t Jaskier see how terrible Geralt is for him? Jaskier’s eyes are infuriatingly blue, and they won’t look the fuck away, and Geralt wants to punch him and kiss him all at once. “I don’t want--” and he can’t finish the sentence. Lies lodge in his chest, making it difficult to breathe. “I’m terrible for you,” he finishes. 

“Gods, you really believe that, don’t you?” Jaskier’s voice is gentler now. “How can you say that? I don’t think I’d be better off without you at all. I love you exactly as you are and I always have.” Jaskier puts both hands on either side of Geralt’s face, and he can’t bear it, to be looked at like this. He kisses Jaskier so he can’t say another fucking word, so Geralt doesn’t have to look into those eyes anymore. 

The kiss is frantic, feverish. A mess of tongue and teeth and his hands buried in Jaskier’s hair, pulling him closer and closer even though he wants to push him away. This flies in the face of every instinct he has.

He drags Jaskier down to the ground with him. They roll together on the grass, kissing like it’s a fight neither is willing to lose. Geralt tears at Jaskier’s clothes, needing to feel his skin under his hands, never feeling like he’ll be able to get close enough to him. 

It’s not until he has Jaskier naked and trembling beneath him as Geralt works him open with his tongue, tracing his thumb along the mark on Jaskier’s foot, that he realizes how desperately he’s been waiting for this to happen again. And now with the mark burning at his heel, it’s taking every ounce of strength not to plunge into Jaskier and fuck him mercilessly into the ground. The taste of Jaskier and the moans and obscenities he’s crying out to the dark sky are driving Geralt mad. 

“Don’t hold back,” Jaskier pleads, gazing up at him with sex-drunk eyes. His lips are bitten red, and Geralt kisses them and bites them redder as he pushes inside of Jaskier. He fucks him like a man possessed, and Jaskier cries out every time Geralt hits his prostate, fingers clutching at Geralt’s ass to pull him in tighter. He kisses Jaskier, filthy and hot, fucking his tongue into his mouth as he moves. 

“More,” Jaskier manages to beg between kisses. “Geralt, I need more.” 

“ _ Fuck, _ ” Geralt chokes out, hating how much he needs this. He wants to press himself into every corner of Jaskier’s body; nothing feels close enough. 

Jaskier’s only reply is to pull him down and crush their lips together again. 

Geralt stays in deep, driving his hips in quick, hard pumps. Jaskier’s hands fall to his sides, clutching at the ground around him, legs splaying open. It’s more than Geralt can take. He’s at the cliff’s edge and he has no choice but to jump, and it’s been this way with Jaskier all along. 

With a moan, he falls forward, burying his face in Jaskier’s neck as he comes, waves of pleasure overtaking him as he rides his orgasm out. He stays inside of Jaskier and wraps his hand loosely around Jaskier’s cock. It only takes a few quick jerks before Jaskier lets out a sharp, “ _ Fuck,”  _ and blows his load into Geralt’s hand. 

They disentangle slowly and stare at one another in helpless disbelief. Geralt doesn’t know where they go from here. 

He wipes his hands on the grass. Both of their nails are filled with dirt, fingers stained with grass. Jaskier inspects his hands, rubs at his back, and lets out a shaky laugh. “Gods, can we ever fuck in a bed?” Jaskier says. Geralt snorts and heaves himself up, moving towards his pack. 

“Oh, now you get the bedroll out,” Jaskier complains, but he stands, a bit unsteadily, and comes to lay down next to Geralt. 

“Even if there was no mark, I’d still want you,” Jaskier says from behind him. “Love is built from more than magic.” 

Geralt flinches. “You should want better things for yourself,” he tells Jaskier. The anger is gone and all he feels is tired. 

“And you,” Jaskier replies. 

He doesn’t protest when Jaskier slings an arm around him, chest pressed into his back. “I think I understand a bit more about your line of work now.” 

Geralt can barely muster a groan, his eyelids drooping shut. Sleep save him from whatever nonsense Jaskier is about to utter. 

“I feel like I’ve just fought and tamed a wild beast.” Jaskier’s hand splays wide over Geralt’s chest, just above his heart. 

“I don’t tame them,” he reminds Jaskier, who makes a humming noise and strokes Geralt’s hip absentmindedly as though he’s playing a melody on his lute. 

“Something tells me you won’t stay tamed anyway.” 

Mercifully, sleep comes before Jaskier can say anything else. 

The next morning he lets Jaskier take him slow and sweet. Lets their fingers intertwine above his head. Lets Jaskier fuck him with languid strokes. He feels a bit like a tamed beast after all. 

Geralt doesn’t think he knows how to make love. It’s always wild and hard and rough, even with Yen--especially with Yen. But he lets Jaskier make love to him, lets himself feel precious and cherished. Thinks that maybe he can trade darkness for light. 

Now more than ever he can understand why so many spread their legs for Jaskier, why he gets such trouble sleeping his way through the Continent. He hits the perfect spot inside of Geralt over and over until his orgasm builds inside of him and he can’t hold back any longer. Geralt doesn’t let many men do this, but he likes the way Jaskier feels, wouldn’t mind doing this again and again and again with him. 

They wash up in the river together that morning. Geralt rubs lavender oil into Jaskier’s back and his hair and remembers their first night together. The memory turns him on more than he can stand, and he slicks Jaskier’s thighs and fucks between them while he strokes Jaskier’s cock. 

After, he wraps his arms around Jaskier’s back, breath running ragged. “I don’t want to ruin you,” Geralt says, face pressed into Jaskier’s hair. He’s ashamed of the raw rasp of his voice. “Please, don’t let me.” 

Jaskier’s hands come up to touch his. “You won’t. You can’t.” 

Geralt breathes in the soft scent of the oil. “When did your mark appear?” he asks. 

Jaskier stills and Geralt blows out a sigh. “Jaskier.” 

“The first time we met,” Jaskier says in a rush. 

“Fuck.” A mix of emotions flash through Geralt. Jaskier has known for so  _ long _ , loved him all that time. Astonishing, beautiful moron. He kisses Jaskier’s neck and tightens his arms around Jaskier’s chest. 

“It was fast even by my standards,” Jaskier says. 

“You know, it is possible to have a conversation with someone without falling in love.”

“Who said we’d had a conversation when mine appeared?” 

“You are a fucking idiot.” 

“I thought it was rather romantic.” 

“You have romance confused with stupidity.” 

“I can live with that.” Jaskier chuckles and turns around in Geralt’s arms. “Come on, I’m cold and starving. Let’s go dry off and find something to eat.” 

The smell of fresh spring flowers is strong, yellow blowballs blossoming along the bank. A gentle breeze laps against the side of Geralt’s face as he casts  _ Igni  _ and readies a fire for cooking. 

“I think you should set things right with Yennefer,” Jaskier says as Geralt begins to roast the hare he caught for them that morning. “Unless you’re too afraid of her now.” 

Geralt gives a short laugh. “You scare me more than Yennefer.” 

Jaskier gapes at him. “I’m sorry, are we talking about the same Yennefer? Yennefer of Vengerberg?” 

Geralt doesn’t deign to explain further, not entirely sure he could even if he wanted to. He rotates the meat slowly over the fire. “I’m not going to sleep with her again,” Geralt says offhandedly. 

“But your fates are intertwined. You wished it so,” Jaskier reminds him. 

“And they are, they will be. At least until we break that spell. Doesn’t mean I can’t control my cock.” 

Jaskier considers this, looking up to the sky. “You can sleep with her. If you like. That’s not the kind of thing I’d really mind. Not if your heart’s mine. Oh, I think I might be able to work that into a song,” he adds to himself. 

A thought strikes Geralt then, that flash of Jaskier’s face peering through the window in Rinde. There had been joy in his face when they locked eyes, and a primal part of Geralt had known that Jaskier loved him. Truly loved him despite all the reasons he should not. 

Jaskier has loved Geralt exactly as he is right from the start. Has never asked him to be someone else. The love Jaskier has given him so freely is not a gift Geralt deserves, but one he intends to earn. 

“Hm. Something tells me I’ll have my hands full with you.” 

Jaskier makes a show of acting affronted, slamming his hands on his knees as he leans forward. “I’ll have you know, I’m phenomenally low-maintenance. I’m perfectly fine for us to continue the lives we’ve been leading, more or less. With more sex, though. Definitely more sex.” He gets a faraway look in his eyes. 

“You were gone for a while,” Geralt says. The smell of fire and charred meat waft towards him as he watches the pink flesh begin to brown. “Before the djinn.” He doesn’t know how to tell Jaskier he doesn’t want that again, that he wants him to walk the Path with Geralt who’d never thought it might be wide enough for two. Even when he’d thought about a future with Yennefer, he’d still imagined them traveling separately around the Continent, careening together when it suited one or the other. 

“I tried to stay away after Cintra.” A crease appears between Jaskier’s brows as he frowns. “You seemed to already have one destiny to outrun, I didn’t want to give you another to leave behind.” 

Geralt closes his eyes briefly. “I think perhaps it’s time I stop with that nonsense.” 

“Yes,” Jaskier says, ”I think perhaps so.” 

Jaskier moves closer to him and tangles a hand in Geralt’s hair. They kiss for a long while after that, their lunch going cold. 

They clear up camp, Jaskier still playing with various combinations of  _ I don’t mind/if your heart is mine _ , singing it in different pitches as they work. Geralt smiles to himself only a little. 

“Do you still want to head for the coast?” Geralt asks, hoisting himself atop Roach once they’re packed.

Jaskier put his hands on his hips and squinted up at Geralt. “You want to head to the coast?” 

Geralt lifts a shoulder. “Decided that it might please me. It might take some time to get there seeing as I spent my last coin on an idiot’s gambling debts.” 

A smile begins to creep across Jaskier’s face, and his eyes, caught in the morning sun, look very bright. “I’m sure that idiot could help earn back some of that coin now that his muse has returned to him. With a lute in his hand and all manner of song in his heart, there’s much coin to be earned." 

"Hm." Geralt tries to hide his smile. 

“Have you given any thought to where we might go after that?” Jaskier asks.

“Cintra,” Geralt says simply. He offers his hand out to Jaskier to pull him up. 

“Cintra it is,” Jaskier says, taking Geralt’s hand. 

A jolt runs through Geralt as his sword-calloused fingers meet Jaskier’s lute-calloused ones. He feels it from the top of his head, through his spine, and down to the heel of his foot. Jaskier holds him tight as they ride, and Geralt can feel the hope radiating off of Jaskier, and he raises his gates enough to allow some of it inside. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand they go find Ciri and are best dads together THE END!
> 
> Big thank you to [ConstantCacoethes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstantCacoethes/works) for betaing this fic and being endlessly supportive! 
> 
> I've got more fics coming soon to a theater near you, so I hope you'll check 'em out <3
> 
> Kudos and comments are so appreciated <3 and the [tumblr link is here if you want to share.](https://geralt-jaskier.tumblr.com/post/190427359671/love-as-you-are-chapter-6-complete)
> 
> Edit: [now with bootiful fanart ](https://geralt-jaskier.tumblr.com/post/190463857116/i-commissioned-the-insanely-talented)


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